Melting
by lucy the divaqueen
Summary: Its hard to see what the world is trying to tell you when it blurs in your eyes like melted wax. Rayne.
1. Chapter 1

She stares so long at him, she can feel her eyes blur, the whole canvas dripping and smearing before her, the heat of her gaze wrenching the landscape, twisting and warping his figure, his torso, his girl until it's unrecognizeable.

She's only the painter. She's not supposed to love her toys. They always break, and they never see her with their plastic eyes.

She can't help it. She sees him and her pulse rockets to well above RHR, the circulation in her arteries throbbing and her fingers trace the patterns on her own skin, fingers gripping her arms, her eyelids fluttering in time with her heart.

She tells herself that it is logical- by anthropological standards, her want of him as her mate is justified. She wants a strong, attractive male specimen to impregnate her. It would be foolish of her to not pass on both her highly evolved mental superiority and her attractive and strong physical characteristics to the next generation, and as a _physically_ if not mentally highly evolved male, he is the perfect (and only) object for her hormones.

And she made him bleed.

When she goes and places a bloody palm on his chest, he yells and yells and yells. No one understands. She took his blood, he needs hers now to help. She has to give it back to him. The crew mutters 'suicidal' and 'relapse' and 'dangerous' but they don't understand. She is a fragment, a particle suspended so that they can all stare at her sparkling in the sun and melting in the dark. They don't understand it at all.

He is her normalicy, her antithesis, her exact opposite and he is the only one who will tell her the truth and not hide behind the fear and fake smile of the other cast members. At least his hate is honest.

Even so, she clutches her stomach and gasps when he calls her a "mu gou" and kicks a chair at her.

It's not the chair's fault.

Mal comes later and kneels by her, his eyes kind and firm (as always, except when he's with Inara, then they show that something else that she wants so badly she can taste it).

"Hey, little one. What's your objection with our fine Mr Jayne, huh? Well, 'cepting, of course, that he hates your guts and wants to sell ya to the feds…"

She wraps her arms around him and sobs into his shoulder and she feels his neck muscles shift and tighten in response, the frozen stone of shock, the little crazy's pulled a new trick and I'm feeling a mite uncomfortable, the paralysis and then the melting.

He pats her shoulder awkwardly and she starts to laugh.

"I just wanted to help. I'm not confused. I know more than anyone else. She's just…. _I_ am jumbled. Like the paper of a kaleidoscope. Thrown about until the bruised colors are forced together and shift to fit the mold submissive, except when she explodes."

He raises his eyebrows.

"Now, I am finding it more than a _touch_ horrifying that that there statement made some sense. How bout you tell my why you're feeling thatta way and we can go about fixing it up, hao ma?"

She stands and pats his head because he is a very good captain and father .

"It can't be fixed. Kaylee's at a loss. He only likes those with over developed mammary glands and loose morals. Stupid putains, essayant de voler mon homme loin, comme elles pensent leurs mésanges ont une chance avec lui! Pah!"

She spits on the floor(in the tradition of being French and all) and runs off to find Simon (who will never learn this particular secret, but is endlessly comforting).

"Huh" is all that Mal's capable of at this particular moment.

Inara, sneaking in for tea, looks at him with raised eyebrows.

"Evesdrop much, 'Nara?"  
She folds her arms across her chest (and he really doesn't notice, he doesn't…).

"Jayne? Really?"

Mal heaves a sigh. He prefers not to deal with hormonal, temperamental, bat shit crazy teenage girls, especially if they're lusting after his disgusting puddle of an ancient mercenary.

"I dearly hope not."

Inara just smiles to herself and saunters back to her room to paint her toenails and think about this new development, leaving the Captain very irritated and very confused ( and not at all thinking about how her rear looks in that skirt).

(because he doesn't think like that about whores. Right.)


	2. Chapter 2

It's not fair. He was supposed to be her prince. Her stupid, angry, selfish prince, but he was supposed to ride with her, save her from herself and tell her when her thoughts escaped her own head and the waves washed over sanity. He was supposed to be hers.

Right now he's with a woman. Not her, never her. She hears their laughter and grunts and it makes her crazy, it makes her skin ride up against her bones and itch and chafe. She wants to be the woman, she wants it so badly that if she closes her eyes, she can taste his sweat dripping from his temple. A single drop, falling slowly and splashing into a tiny ocean onto her pale tongue.

She tells herself it's wrong, it's not her place, that she has self control, but she can't help herself from doing it.

She crawls, catlike, into her room and locks the door and reaches out. She doesn't have to look far, just beyond the cocoon of Zoe and Wash, just beyond her own head and there he is. The heat instantly rushes over her, swallowing her, and she gasps as he pushes her down roughly and she giggles when he scrapes his beard along her jaw (but that's wrong; his beard wouldn't be ticklish, it would leave her burning) and when he spreads her legs she bites her lip and cries and turns on her side, no longer participating in this particular game because even though it's easy to, she just can't forget that it isn't hers.

She just wanted to know what he was like, and now she has a scrape on her jaw for her foolishness.

Silly little girls get killed by curiosity, most often by wildcats.

She bugs Simon to bandage it for so long that he finally does, even though she hears him talking to Kaylee about her imagining it later. He's worried, but he's always worried, so what.

The next day, when she walks in on him kissing his woman long and hard outside his bunk, she simply walks over to the slut, unwraps the stupid scarf (that is _such_ a dead giveaway for hickey hiding sweetheart, a slut like you should really know better)and pats her fingers along the harsh red beard-burn.

"You should wear this proudly"

she turns to Jayne and bows, head touching the floor, arms raised at her sides like wings, the swan's salute.

"I hereby consider our relationship terminated. Please leave your donation in the box by the stairs."

He stares after her and eventually mutters out a "gorram crazy mu gou" and goes back to probing the woman's tonsils with his tongue.

She cries.

A logical reaction, all things considered.


	3. Chapter 3

It's Jayne's birthday tomorrow.

She hums happy birthday to herself, except in B instead of her normal C Minor, harmonizing over the E flat on the way down. It's the little things that keep her distracted.

Jayne announces to the crew (with approximately zero amount of shame) that all he wants is to go out to a bar, maybe with them, maybe not, and pick up a willin' woman (or four) and get so drunk that he won't remember any of it.

She giggles to herself and everyone turns to stare. She stares back.

"What? I don't see the point of having a screaming orgy if you're too inebriated to _really_ enjoy it. You know, it's a scientific fact that it's harder for men to become erect when they're drunk since arousal occurs first in the brain and alcohol tampers with your thought process. So your plan is very stupid."

They all stare in horrified silence, except for Simon, who sputters and protests (because he really does still treat her like a five year old, a clear psychological reaction to their forced distance, not to mention the over protective streak that has resulted from their lack of strong parental figures).

"Did she just insult me? Did she just say I ain't able of getting' it up? Gorram little psycho, I can _prove_ that ain't true!"

He stands up, leaning towards River, and she just stares up at him, wondering if it was possible for him to be cruder, when Simon knocks over the table and grabs Jayne by the shirt collar. It's all very exciting, and then everything really goes to hell and everyone explodes at once.

"If you even go near her, I will make certain that you won't be able to get anything up ever again, you barbaric heathen!"

"Is that a threat, pansy?"

"Is anyone amused by the fact that the little girl just insulted Jayne's orgy-slash-sexual prowess? I mean, I really am loving this here."

"Sweetheart, just eat your protein."

"It most certainly is."

"But the insult! And the Orgy!"

"River, that's completely inappropriate!"

"This is absurd."

"Wash, baby. You need to be doing that thing we talked about. The shutting-up one?"

"You little kiss-ass, I'd love to see you try and cut my junk off-.."

Mal stands up and fires at the ceiling (irrational, but effective).

"Listen up. I ain't too pleased by the fact that my dinner's been disrupted. Plus this rooms gonna need cleaning and if either my gunner or my doctor gets hurt it will most definitely put me in a murderin' mood. And passing over that exciting tidbit that crazy over here gave all of us, she's got a damned good point. So Jayne, Simon, get to cleaning. And River, try and keep those amusing revelations to yourself, dong ma?"

She nods and giggles into her tea as she watches Jayne attempting to put on big yellow rubber gloves with no small amount satisfaction.


	4. Chapter 4

She's walking along the hall, calculating the holes in the metal walkway (if there's 2200 holes in a four by four square, then you'd have find the number in a 1x1 square and then multiply it by eighteen by four, except there's a one in three chance that there will be up to five flaws in each foot at least, but that's the latest bulletin from the Guilds that she's heard in the last five months so it may be outdated, so…) when a dainty but surprisingly small arm comes out of nowhere and yanks her into a very clutered and strongly scented room.

There she finds an array of torture tools, more frightening than the last, a plethora of vile contraptions, each intended for warping, disfiguring…

She has to leave. It's not safe here.

They want to change her, they want to alter her…

"Make it go away! It wants to change me! Help, Simon! _HELP_!"  
Inara comes to stand in front of her and despite the fact that River can shoot a target from five hundred feer with her eyes closed, she is very, very frightened by this pretty sparkly person holding a lipstick tube.

"I have a proposition to make, River Tam…"


	5. Chapter 5

_AN: sorry for the wait...Here we are. UST floats my boat so hard, you've no idea_

She feels sticky, gross, and weighted down. Coated in honey, like a fly trap, and they'll swarm like bees, all flocking to nip at her, eating her away.

Her eyelids are sheathed in some sort of shiny gunmetal grey and she feels like a revolver, poised and hard and sharp but all this war paint feels sticky. Her lips are red, like blood but more along the lines of berry and it's gumming up her mouth with its sticky juice. She tries to talk, she tries, but she knows that this mouth isn't meant for talking, its meant for whispering sighs and silence. And her _hair_. Her hair is lifted up and away from her face, piled in sloppy, loose curls up on her head (its very counterproductive, lifting her hair away from her face and then making it fragile and falling into her eyes. It makes _no sense_ whatsoever. She can barely _move_. Which is, after all, the point of this barbaric mating ritual. How does Inara do it?). She's so bare, small breasts pushed up and out of the strapless yellow gown, walking in tiny, hobbling steps.

"You know, this type of gown was invented by the ancient Chinese of Earth-that-was so that it was harder for women to run away when men wanted to have intercourse with them, whether it was consensual or not? It's literally called a bondage dress. Don't you have issues with that?"

Inara grimaces and smiles at the ground, those secret smiles that River knows men find so alluring (Captain Reynolds certainly does). Her own dress is a smooth emerald cocoon, wrapping her torso in a corset of fabric and bandaging her body down to her toes with a huge draping sash draping over her shoulder, a dangerously seductive mantis. River, even if she lives a hundred years, will never be that glamorous.

River's dress is bright yellow and strapless, rouched between her breasts and tight enough to her feet that she can barely move with a mermaid-like train of ruffles in yellow silk and white tulle. She knows she is very pretty, but this is not her. It's a mask. One she guiltily enjoys wearing, but it's uncomfortable. Binding.

Just like they intended.

Squished lungs, bound feet, ruined spirit.

She tiptoes her way down the walkway and smacks straight into Zoe, who has been parading down the walkway, and River can see why.

"A Queen. Rules over everything, that's what you are."

Zoe grins at her and curtsies (River congratulates herself for passing off her moment of innormality as normal), lifting up the silk of her halter gown, the deep brown colour matching her skin(Wash got his slinky dress).

"I must say, if anyone's looking like royalty, it's you, miss River Tam. You've done quite a bit of growing up in the past few hours. Inara get her claws into you?"

River turns to glare at Inara, who smiles smugly (she's always smiling).

"She's a blackmailer. Don't trust her."

There's a shriek from behind them and they all grin at the sight of Kaylee flying down the steps from the engine room in her pink candy dress.

"River Tam! Look at you, looking so swa shei! Ni zhen hao kan, wo de mei mei! Golly, I'd never have believed- why just look at you! Inara, did you do this?"  
Inara and River exchange a glance and she rolls her eyes.

"_Yes_. Don't trust her. She makes you wear makeup."

Kaylee giggles and takes the younger girl's hand.

"It's okay mei mei. Next time, Inara, if you get the urge to make over anyone, I will bravely sacrifice myself in her place."

Kaylee is noble, is strong.

"Thank you. That's very brave. A princess shouldn't have to sacrifice her life."

Zoe steps forward and hooks her arm through Inara's arm and they are suddenly all bound together, the women of the clan, the women of Serenity.

"I wonder. If I'm the Queen of this here establishment and little Kaylee's the princess, what does that make you and River?"

Inara pretends to think as they all slowly meander to the kitchen to meet up with the men.

"Well, that's obvious. I'm the ambassador."

They all laugh, genuine, thinks River, and she gets the joke. She feels good tonight. Almost whole, she manages, before Zoe asks, "And River?"

Inara smiles at the younger girl, so innocent, looking so far beyond sinful in her yellow dress and River gapes at this glimpse of her new self through Inara's eyes. It's odd, but she can see it all the same.

"Why, she's the enchantress. The prophetess."  
River pouts while Kaylee mutters something about "Shiny, an enchantress! How's that for glamour, huh Zoe?"

"What, mei mei? Why so sad?"

River raises an eyebrow at Inara and adjusts the top of her dress haughtily as she steps through the containment area and into the hall ajoining the kitchen.

"The prophetess always gets stoned in Greek myths."

Zoe steps forward to open the door for them as Kaylee gasps in horror and Inara chuckles.

"Well then we sure are glad that this ain't earth-era Greece, aren't we girls?"  
And then they step through.

and there is silence.

If River was objective about this, she would say that this was a classic mating ritual, the fluffing up of feathers for their mates, the rush of hormones as the urge to reproduce took over when they appraised their matches in all their glory.

But suddenly she can't do this anymore (despite Inara's cajoling and pleading), seeing as everyone pairs off, seeing the all consuming, dizzying rush of almost painful love that Wash has in his eyes when he takes in Zoe, the longing of a starving man for bread that makes Mal drop his cup when he sees his emerald waltz into his kitchen and she can't see the tenderness in simon's eyes as he visibly looks past the cheap make of Kaylee's dress and into her shy smile, her pink candy heart. Even Shepard Book is smiling (to want is to sin, and to sin is to die, and he wants to live, but that is a want, so does that make it a sin? But he does not want these women, only their company, their flock) as Zoe goes to bump her hip into his.

it's a full circle.

They don't need her. the one without a match, the lone merc in the corner peeling his apple doesn't want a match. He doesn't need her, and she won't embarrass herself in her yellow dress, the girl parading in her mother's clothes, shoes too big to fit, her mask slipping off her face.

It'll never fit.

She tries to sneak away, tries to hide, to keep it from surfacing, to run before the mask falls off completely, but she trips on her train with her big heels and ends up falling face first into the floor.

She freezes for a moment as the triangles of the floor (9,287,772.4 holes in all, educated estimation) dent her skin and reality shifts.

She can see the sky in its blueness. Strawberries and cream.

Her face presses into the cracks, seeping, dripping down into the cargo bay below, melting off her bones like the fat off of a turkey, roasted alive in this oven of love that she is excluded from until it passes off into space, leaving a trail of mess and ruined skin.

She always leaves trails of destruction.

It would all be better for them if she could just lie here and drip, just melt away into space, infinite, unfeeling. All one big blank. One vast nothing, that's all she was. A mask for their use, made into a tool, special in that she could help them, two by two she would be used. Two cuts into her brain, two severed parents, two lost lives, two by two. She saw it. more death. Shepard, his herd is lost. The happy dinosaur, leaving behind his family to mourn, to gather food for itself. She didn't want to see, she didn't want to be alone.

Maybe if she just dripped, it wouldn't happen.

She would just melt.

She reaches out her arms and grips the metal, pressing harder, smiling as her skin liquefies and is burned off her, her skeleton smiling as it's outside falls away. Nothing left but insides, the good stuff. The stuff that no one wants. Her skin making soft plopping sounds as it hits the ground, wetly splashing as it curls in soft chunks away from her body and plummets to the ground, exploding like the inside of a melon.

Drip.

"River?"

"Is she okay?"

"What's she doing?"

"River, sweetie, what're you doing?"

"RIVER!"

"What's wrong with her?"

Inara bends over and picks her up off the floor and she shakes her head, comes back to reality and sees what they see: a stark, white armed girl pressing her body into the cracks, leaving deep diamond shaped imprints in the skin, eyes splayed wide and unseeing.

And she remembers life a little as she sees all of them, standing there staring at her, the men so clean and shiny in their cowboy suits, all dressed up for a night on the town. Pretty little happy packages. Packages of things she loves.

The good stuff.

The innards.

The least she can do is be happy for them.

So she smiles and straightens the ringlets around her face and adjusts her train and the top of the strapless dress that defies gravity.

"I fell. Sorry I kept you waiting."

Now that the fear is gone, Simon's eyes widen as he realizes that yes, this is his mei mei, somehow, this creature with red lips and sultry eyes and good god, he can't think about all the men in the bars they will most likely be going to looking at his little sister's cleavage. This is not acceptable. He _never_ wanted to _think_ about her cleavage, much less see it. Ever ever. And the men! The other men! His mei mei!

"Mei, what on earth are you wearing? You look like a biao zi!"

To her great surprise, just as she opens her mouth to tell him that she does not and it isn't his business, Inara goes and links her arm through hers.

"Well she would, wouldn't she? It is, after all, my dress. C'mon birthday boy. We're all waiting on you."

At this, River starts and realizes that Jayne is no where to be seen. That means he hasn't seen her yet.

that means she can show him.

That means she hasn't blown her chance.

She isn't sure why she wants to impress him. He's rather despicable, actually. Her subconscious probably sees it as a right of passage; as a sexually active alpha-male type, his attraction to her will assert her womanhood. Or something.

There is a lot of grumbling and banging, and River blocks out the sound of "gorram fancy dress shit" and "whadda we have ter get all fancied up for, anyhow?" and breathes in slowly, coldly, letting her mind change into no River, but yet another River. An Inara-River.

"I still don't git why dressing up all fancy to go to a bar changes much of nuthin, 'Nara, 'cept for your chances of gettin' more clients to service. All I want is-…."

He breaks off and when she opens her eyes, he is staring, and she feels naked, more than naked, she feels ashamed and blessed at the same time and her inner Inara flees and she wants to squirm and cover herself up and run away but she can't because of the gorram Chinese and evil Inara. She feels slightly dizzy because his stare is eating her up and everyone is watching and she sees Kaylee straining to hold Simon back by his shirttails.

He swallows thickly and adjusts his tie, coughing once before tearing his eyes away and grunting uncomfortably to Wash and Zoe, both of whose eyebrows have hit their hairline in the past few moments.

She has passed.

Mal steps forward.

"You seem to be taking a mighty large interest in River's dress." He notes in that low voice, the one that says, _I haven't had dinner yet and I'm feeling peckish and your brains look right appetizin'..._

He grimaces and nods at River, who nods solemnly back. This is odd, because she was certain Mal's interest lay in Inara, unless he has developed a paternal streak suddenly…of course he has. Of course. She shakes her head to clear it, to jolt the glitter our of her ears and eyes.

"Well, it's a fine party frock, ain't it?" Grunts Jayne, eyes flicking.

Mal steps forward again until his chin gets near Jayne's shoulder.

"That it is."

River watches with wide eyes, curious at this development, confused, and she decides that men are very irrational creatures, not to mention it isn't a frock, it's a gown.

They should know the difference.  
Mal abruptly steps back and River gets flashes of 'air lift' and 'blown to hell' and 'its kinda hard not to stare, she's fallin' outta the damn thing' and 'whys he getting' all protective-like?' and she knows that she has succeeded, just a little bit, so she smiles sunnily and offers Shepard Book her arm and they go off to the 'fancy party' to get drunk and pick up loose women.

River just wants out of the gorram dress.

Its done its job.

AN: Please do review. I am utterly pathetic in my yearning. If you review, I will use the word yearning in a viable sentance concerning River and Jayne in the next chapter...


End file.
